EMStnnwalker if you are going to wean the foal that early, and I am not a fan of early weaning, keeping him with the yearlings and close to his mother so he can see and smell her is the way to go. It will be far less traumatic on both mare and foal and more natural. I believe 100% in keeping things as natural as possible.
Your herd dynamics will be the same when he is reintroduced to his mother physically.
However with the hay and grass situation you are dealing with remember that foal will be getting some of his meals for free from his mother.
Once you start weaning him he will be competing for grazing with the other horses.
If I were you I would feed the mare more grain to reduce her weight loss and allow him to nurse a couple of more months to stretch your hay and grass out until the fall. A complete feed or a senior feed might be better for her and feed race bran with it. Or go the expensive route and get Omolene 300 it already has amplify nuggets for weight gain added.
That foal needs certain nutrients in order to develop and grow to his full potential. Shalom

LOL! Easy as pie! The post office knows when I've ordered chicks. You can hear them out in the parking lot. LOL! Who did you use? I've had really good luck with Meyer's. I know it seems like forever to get a new flock going again, but I'm all for starting them from scratch and getting them used to your own set up. I bought my Easter eggers back in February and hope to see my first green egg any time now. Woohoo! Can't wait to hear about your new arrivals! :)

LOL! Easy as pie! The post office knows when I've ordered chicks. You can hear them out in the parking lot. LOL! Who did you use? I've had really good luck with Meyer's. I know it seems like forever to get a new flock going again, but I'm all for starting them from scratch and getting them used to your own set up. I bought my Easter eggers back in February and hope to see my first green egg any time now. Woohoo! Can't wait to hear about your new arrivals! :)

My PO knows me as well. I've got them so they will call me when they arrive at the PO at 530 in the am. I drive and pick them up so they don't have to ride in the carrier's truck until they get to my house.

I use Ideal. I've had great success with them and they are close so the chicks are usually here the next day. They are good about communicating and have always been real helpful.

Can't wait to see what I get. I'll have to post pics and we can guess the breeds. When you order the 1.00 ea grab bag special, they send you a misc selection and no list... It's fun stuff.

I hope you get a whole flock of little Earls.
If you would have allowed him is little personality quirks none of this would have happened.
In order to ensure good karma for the new flock may I suggest a very generous donation to the offshore bank account that I will PM you with the account number.
This and only this will erase the bad Karma still due for the murder of Earl. Shalom

I'm tired - just got home from Spring (between Tomball and I45). Drove home during 5pm traffic, thru messed up and backed up train tracks and head on collisions with even more road blocks. I should have taken the interstate back instead of coming back thru Tomball, Magnolia and Plantersville. I'm whipped!

TG, glad to hear you've got chicks coming and I envy you for ordering the grab bag. That is going to be fun and easier, since it is so hot right now so that will be a plus during the brooding process.

Hope everyone has a great weekend! Going to visit the MIL for her bday. I noticed there is no cartwheel smiley to choose - not like I would have clicked on it anyway.

Hey Cynical, I missed the part of your post about saddle shopping earlier. I'm so hopelessly addicted to saddle shopping. If I had the money, I'd have a closet full of saddles. Oh wait, that's what people say about their shoes, isn't it?! My poor hubby always worries when I'm surfing ebay but I just "like to look"....really. Ok so I had one or two just kind of happen at the last minute because they were a killer deal. I got my dressage saddle that way. I came across a really nice Crosby for $200 with like 2 minutes left, and I ended up being the only bidder. Oops. LOVE that thing though. Oh and just last week a friend of mine gave me 3 very forgotten old saddles from his shed that looked just awful and I revived them with a little Leather New and oil. Gotta share the before and afters now of course. I'm hopelessly addicted. For what it's worth, after our fire, I bought my very first rough out saddle and love how secure it feels. No, they won't be as pretty as the tooled fenders when they really take on my seat and leg, but I love how they ride. Keep us posted on your shopping!

Here are my saddle projects. I couldn't sort the order from first to last for nothing so look at the last picture first and go in that order.

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